Emma Previato

Emma Previato received her PhD from Harvard University in 1983.  Emma’s dissertation concerned applications of algebraic geometry to non-linear wave equations and other dynamical systems. In 1983 Emma became an assistant professor at Boston University, where she is now a full professor having left her post at times to pursue her research as a visitor, among other places, at the Institute for Advanced Studies (Princeton, NJ); the Mittag-Leffler Institute (Royal Academy of Sweden); the Bunting Institute (Radcliffe College); the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (Berkeley, CA). She is editor and writer of two books, a scientific dictionary, and some 40 technical articles.  As the founder (1993) and advisor of the Boston University Student Chapter of the MAA, Emma has obtained grants (Exxon Foundation, BU’s Humanities Foundation and Student Government) to create undergraduate publications, interdisciplinary symposia, Masterclasses series, and fund other student activities, which she avidly partakes in.

In 1998 Emma originated a series of lectures, the Boston University Masterclasses, to bring together the students of the BU academy, the BU undergraduates, graduate students and interested faculty. An invited speaker would lecture on topics of significant mathematical interest, in fashion understandable to all in the audience (examples: Music and Number Theory; Hyperbolic Geometry; the History of the Quaternions…) Emma also succeeded in bringing local high-school audiences to her annual symposia that showcase the interaction of mathematics and the arts, as well as her new series, Research by Undergraduates in Mathematics Boston University Symposium.